q: what does your sticker designing process usually look like?

a: That’s a good question! I think it depends on how clear my vision for the sticker sheet is! For my character sticker sheets, I started with rough doodles in my sketchbook —

Ahaha yes, very rough :”D

But from there, I can get new ideas, and figure out what I want to clean up, and what I want to scrap!

Actually drawing my stickers does not really take a long time! Most of it is really just brainstorming ideas and concepts of what I want to draw. The best example I can think of is the “painted memories sticker sheet”. It took a while to come up with the idea of an easel sticker sheet - let alone the images on the canvases - but once I had the ideas, actually drawing the stickers went really quick.

q: how long does it take you to design a product?

It really depends, but I think I am really slow! My logged time for my Procreate sticker sheets have a really big range:

Painted Memories: 15 hours

Moments in Time: 13 hours

Little Wishes: 4 hours

Little Moods: 2 hours

Character Sticker Sheets — time shows basically just tracing, cleaning up, and arranging the stickers since most of the sketches were done in my sketchbook:

Daily Life of Wut: 4 hours

Daily Life of Bunni: 7.5 hours

Daily Life of Shick: 3 hours

Daily Life of Wurm: 4 hours

As for my prints, each one takes around 3-6 hours/1-4 days to draw. But that is only the drawing process. Coming up with ideas usually takes a lot longer.

q: do you think that opening a small shop is worth it?

a: If you enjoy doing it, I think it really is worth it! My shop is still really small, but I don’t regret opening. It definitely takes a lot of work and time, but since I enjoy working on my shop, it is something I would like to keep working towards, and expand upon in the future :)

q: what was your inspiration! any advice or tips on how to prepare for an opening?

a: I think there were many things that inspired me to create a shop! For one, the “packing orders” videos on Youtube, or other small shops on Instagram! More than anything though… I think that the idea of sharing my designs with others just really appealed to me a lot :)

As for advice, (this might be common knowledge) but it is easier to make returns if you open your shop with more products! I wish I had thought of this when I first opened my shop! I only realized this with my first shop update. When I updated, I did not expect orders for my original designs. However, my original (“first-batch”) designs sold similarly to my new releases! I think that with every update and every new product, it becomes easier to make sales and get bigger orders. I feel that the financial aspect of running a shop isn’t discussed a lot, but I personally think it is normal to feel that your shop is not “returning as much as you put into it” at the start.

q: how do you balance work/study with the shop?

a: Honestly, I don’t know myself! That explains the 3 month long break I took from my shop while working on college applications. Now that I am a second semester senior in high school (just graduated now actually!), I just have a lot more time to be able to dedicate to working on my shop. It is really just what you prioritize. For me, setting deadlines is the best (and only) way that I am able to get things done. If you could invest one or two hours a day, you could make a lot of progress! (but also, like anyone else, I have those days of doing nothing — it is hard to stay consistent on such an independent, personal project, so taking breaks and staying inspired is definitely important!)

[Reading back now, in the winter break after my first semester of college, I will say it seems really challenging to balance the two! I took a 4 month long break during the entire semester! but… it is all part of the learning process, so i hope you can be forgiving of yourself if you are trying to balance the two as well :”)]

q: where should I start researching if i want to start a small business?

a: Hmm.. I am not so sure myself! I guess it really depends on the type of business you are thinking to open. But in my case, starting eversosoftly looked kind of like:

(1) Setting a hard deadline to launch

(2) Setting a budget

(3) Choosing a platform to sell on (etsy v. shopify v. squarespace v. bigcartel, etc.)

(4) Researching materials/manufacturers

(4) Designing my products, business cards, logo, receipts, etc.

(5) Designing my packaging

(6) Designing my website

(7) Announcing my shop on my journaling account

(8) Photographing and posting things on my shop account!

(9) Researching shipping and postage

(10) Launching!!! :D

Of course there were other things too, as well as many ups and downs while I was working towards opening.

But don’t be too overwhelmed by the researching process! You really learn a lot through experience, and if you spend too much time planning, you may never actually get to opening your shop. If you really want to open your shop, the best thing to do would be to just… open it :)

q: do you outsource your products?

a: For sticker sheets, no. But for art prints, yes :) As of right now, printing and cutting my own stickers is very manageable, and it would be less cost effective to outsource (also.. I have not researched any manufacturers for stickers at the moment.) However, for art prints, it is different as I cannot produce prints of high enough quality with the printer and paper I have.

q: how often do you come up with new products?

a: :0 I am really not sure! Since I’ve only had two “batches” of products - one from my opening, and one from my first shop update - I don’t really know how often I’m coming up with new ideas. Right now, as I am preparing for my 2nd shop update, I have 6 ideas! 2 that I really like, 2 that I am iffy on, and 2 that I don’t think I’ll end up making. When I am “struck with inspiration” ahaha I jot down the ideas in Notion.

Then, I will try to set a realistic deadline for each project, and work on it consistently throughout the week. Since it is now summer for me, I am thinking to set specific hours to work on my shop - almost like a job. Probably from around 9 - 11am (for designing) going forwards since it is summer, and I don’t want to be waking up at 1pm every day ahaha.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading! I hope this FAQ was helpful or at least interesting for you to read! I will try to update this FAQ if I ever get more questions :)

If you have any other questions, please DM me on Instagram (@eversosoftly) or email me at eversosoftlyco@gmail.com :D

Thank you again for reading!